It’s not yet three months since the PresenTense organization opened their first year-round Jerusalem space – and they are already making a significant impact. As co-founder Aharon Horwitz so eloquently told us at dinner Shabbat eve (see below), not only have they created an all encompassing Hub, but we have all come together to form a community. One that extends across multiple channels and to multiple countries, and certainly here in Jerusalem, across generations. Perhaps…
Community 3.0 – where the evolutionary social stages of Web interaction are leveraged together with face-to-face interactions creating unlimited potential (my definition).
Set smack in the middle of the Angloized world of Emek Refaim, the new Hub is more than just a place for an expansion of their summer fellowship initiatives. It is a place for innovators to congregate and work – along with a physical host to communal initiatives.
Let’s take a brief look at just this past week: the co-working space continues to grow as hundreds of visitors come to work, learn, network, surf the Web or just plain hang-out. Every day, freelancers, entrepreneurs, telecommuters and others from all over Jerusalem (and some surrounding communities) schlep their laptops to the Hub for work, meetings and socializing.
The local community is not left out. Monday night, the unrelated Jerusalem Web Professionals hosted an experts’ panel on Search Engine Optimization. The Hub is always crowded – but this was one of those standing room only events which also succeeded in exposing a new audience to the PresenTense community.
As the week came to a close, PresenTense ushered in Shabbat with the first of what will become a bi-monthly community dinner. The atmosphere was electric and infectious – participants covered three, or perhaps four generations, from a new-born to well, we won’t go there. This pot luck dinner, complete with a D’var Torah and good conversation brought together many who previously have not met. And like every PresenTense event, there was instant commardarie and positive networking.
update: on Monday night, PresenTense hosted a Night of Mayhem Viral Party – it was an opportunity to contribute to a community of change, meet cutting-edge social entrepreneurs who want to make the world a better place, see what they’re working on and to share your own thoughts on a problem you think needs to be solved.
You can read some of the comments here or add a new vision – after-all, this is Community 3.0.
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